Chapter 4 - The Woman Whose Baby Was Buried Empty
The attackers never reached the basement.
Stellan’s security team stopped them in the west courtyard.
Two men died.
One surrendered.
The third escaped.
By eight in the morning, police sirens surrounded the estate, although none of the officers seemed particularly eager to enter.
Stellan stood in the medical room watching Fern sleep.
I stood beside him.
Neither of us had spoken about the phone call yet.
Finally, he said, “Marisol Vale is supposed to be dead.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Dominic buried her fourteen months ago.”
Apparently, Marisol had driven her car into Lake Michigan.
No body had been recovered.
Only blood.
A coat.
A wedding ring.
“Everyone assumed suicide,” Stellan said.
“Maybe everyone assumes too much around your family.”
He looked at me.
I expected anger.
Instead, he nodded.
“Apparently.”
We arranged to meet Marisol in an abandoned church on the west side.
Stellan objected to taking me.
I refused to stay behind.
Fern remained with Dr. Hale and four armed guards.
At the church, Marisol stepped from behind the altar.
She looked exhausted.
Thin.
Terrified.
The moment she saw Stellan, she pulled a gun.
He didn’t flinch.
“Put it down.”
“You Cross men took everything from me.”
“I’m not my father.”
“That’s what Cassandra used to say about you.”
Stellan froze.
“You knew Cassandra?”
Marisol started crying.
“She saved my daughter.”
Then the story came out.
Marisol and Cassandra had met secretly while both were pregnant.
Victor had learned Marisol’s husband, Dominic, was cooperating with federal investigators.
Victor intended to kidnap their newborn child and use her to control Dominic.
Cassandra discovered the plan.
So she devised a switch.
“My baby would be recorded as dead,” Marisol said. “Cassandra’s baby would temporarily take her identity. Your baby, Selene, was never supposed to be involved.”
“Then why was she?”
“Because Victor arrived.”
Marisol looked at me.
“He knew Cassandra had betrayed him. He ordered a nurse to move all three babies.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you saw your daughter yesterday.”
Marisol removed her phone.
A photograph showed a teenage-looking girl entering a building beside Victor Cross.
I stared.
“That’s not possible. Your daughter would be eleven months old.”
Marisol shook her head.
“That isn’t my daughter.”
Confusion hit me.
“You said—”
“I said I saw her.”
She zoomed in.
The girl carried a baby.
A tiny baby with dark curls.
“My daughter is the infant.”
Stellan took the phone.
“Who is the girl?”
Marisol’s eyes hardened.
“Her name is Lily.”
Stellan stopped breathing.
I noticed immediately.
“Who?”
He stared at the picture.
“My sister’s daughter.”
“But Fern—”
“Cassandra had another child.”
The lies multiplied faster than I could understand them.
Marisol explained.
Cassandra had secretly given birth once before, at seventeen.
Victor forced the family to hide the pregnancy.
The baby girl, Lily, was raised under another identity.
Cassandra spent years searching for her.
“She found Lily shortly before Fern was born,” Marisol said.
“So Victor has Lily and your baby?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Lily knows where Cassandra hid the Cradle Ledger.”
Stellan’s face hardened.
“And Fern?”
Marisol looked at me.
“That depends on who Fern really is.”
A gunshot shattered a stained-glass window.
Stellan tackled me to the floor.
More shots followed.
Marisol screamed.
Stellan returned fire.
We crawled behind stone columns as bullets tore through pews.
Then I saw the shooter.
Rafe.
Stellan’s oldest friend.
Standing in the church doorway.
Holding the gun.
My heart stopped.
Stellan saw him too.
“Rafe?”
For one second, neither man fired.
Rafe looked almost apologetic.
Then he said:
“I told Victor you’d eventually figure it out.”
Stellan’s expression changed into something terrifying.
“You work for him?”
“I work for whoever wins.”
Another group of armed men entered behind Rafe.
Marisol whispered, “There’s a tunnel beneath the altar.”
Stellan grabbed my hand.
We ran.
As we disappeared into darkness, Rafe shouted after us.
“You should have stayed dead, Adrian!”
Stellan stopped.
I pulled him.
“Move!”
We escaped through a tunnel that opened three blocks away.
But when Stellan checked his phone, his face went white.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
Security footage from the mansion.
Dr. Hale was unconscious.
The guards were down.
Fern’s crib was empty.
May you like
My scream echoed through the alley.
Someone had taken my daughter.
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